Thank the house gods, the stink is gone. For the last two weeks the house has had an aroma that was not too pleasant. Being in the sewer business I finally started looking into it. Our often backed up side sewer, was not backed up. Strike one, The next most common cause is a dried out trap in the plumbing. Not us, all water barriers in place. Strike two. The less common but possible cause is a leak in the vent stack. Difficult to pinpoint, and probably costly to diagnose exactly where the leaks are. After arriving home from the Mikado it seemed particularly smelly. So I went down to the basement to ponder the plumbing. I finally decided we were going to have to pay for another expert to sniff out or smoke out the problem. Then I noticed an area behind several layers of spider webs that appeared to be covered in some sort of tape. It was next to a joint where the pipe sizes change. Now I don’t know what would have caused the change, but …
The next morning I told Carl we could call the plumber or if he wanted we could try a duct tape repair in the area of this older tape. Since I was at work and Carl is a one-hand, Ashlan was elected. I wasn’t there, but apparently the spider webs were dispatched, duct tape found, and a wrapping party held.
And lo and behold – the stink is gone. The basement smells like a good old musty basement, and we can turn the house fan back on to pull the cooler air through the house.
Raincharm's Weblog 